{"id":200222,"date":"2026-03-21T08:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200222\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T08:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:26:17","slug":"instant-takeaways-from-the-florida-gators-blowout-win-over-prairie-view-am-in-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200222\/","title":{"rendered":"Instant Takeaways from the Florida Gators’ Blowout Win Over Prairie View A&M in NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla.– The one-seed Florida Gators<\/a> on Friday opened play in the NCAA Tournament <\/a>with a crushing 114-55 win over Prairie View A&M.<\/p>\n

Florida shot an impressive 64.3 percent from the field, while shooting an efficient 45.5 percent from deep, turning a 15-15 tie early in the game into a 60-21 lead at halftime. 13 of Florida’s 14 players that saw time on the court scored.<\/p>\n

Here are three instant takeaways from the Gators’ win over the Panthers. Florida will play nine-seed Iowa in the Round of 32 on Sunday in Tampa.<\/p>\n

Dominant Paint Presence Opens Up Offense<\/p>\n

Florida simply dominated down low<\/a> against Prairie View A&M, out-scoring the Panthers 64-10 in the paint while out-rebounding the Panthers 29-13. 30 of the Gators’ first 35 points came in the paint, including 16 points in an 18-0 run in the first half that saw a 15-15 tie turn into a 33-15 lead for the Gators.<\/p>\n

Rueben Chinyelu finished with a 14-point, 13-rebound double-double, while Alex Condon (13 points), Thomas Haugh (14 points) and Micah Handlogten (eight points, seven rebounds) supported the paint presence.<\/p>\n

That dominance in the paint allowed Florida to limit its 3-point shooting in the first half, where the Gators shot 3-for-7 from deep. A 39-point lead at half allowed Florida to shoot more from deep in the second half, where that Gators shot 7-for-15 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

Boogie Fland<\/a> (16 points, 2-for-2 from deep), Xaivian Lee (10 points, 3-for-8 from deep) Urban Klavzar (11 points, 2-for-4 from deep), Isaiah Brown (seven points, 1-for-1 from deep), CJ Ingram (eight points, 1-for-1 from deep) and Alex Kovatchez (five points, 1-for-2 from deep) each contributed from deep, with Lee’s three makes headlining.<\/p>\n

Stifling Defense<\/p>\n

Building off its dominance in the paint, Florida simply shut down Prairie View A&M’s offense.<\/p>\n

After the Panthers hit five 3-pointers to tie the game, 15-15, Florida held Prairie View A&M to only two field goals in its next 19 attempts. That dominance carried over into the second half, where the Panthers shot just 10-for-33 from the field and 1-for-11 from deep.<\/p>\n

Guard Donte Horne, who came in averaging over 20 points a game, was held to just six points on 1 of 9 shooting.<\/p>\n

Condon had the biggest presence down low defensively with three blocks.<\/p>\n

Clean Basketball<\/p>\n

After a rough performance in the SEC Tournament playing clean basketball, Florida took care of business against Prairie View A&M, only committing seven turnovers, while recording 29 assists as a team.<\/p>\n

Haugh led the way with seven assists, while Condon and Lee each added five and Fland added four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla.– The one-seed Florida Gators on Friday opened play in the NCAA Tournament with a crushing 114-55…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-200222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}